Rafizi, ex-bank clerk found guilty of leaking National Feedlot Corp info

Asila Jalil Asila Jalil Updated 6 years ago · Published on 7 Feb 2018 10:45AM · 3 Comments

Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli arriving at the Shah Alam Sessions Court today where he was found guilty of breaching the Banking and Financial Institutions Act. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Najjua Zulkefli, February 7, 2018.

PANDAN lawmaker Rafizi Ramli and former Public Bank clerk Johari Mohamad have been found guilty and sentenced to 30 months’ jail by the Shah Alam Sessions Court today of breaching the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia) in relation to the National Feedlot Corporation Sdn Bhd accounts leak.

Judge Zamri Bakar said the prosecution has proven its case beyond doubt.

Both were ordered to enter their defence by Zamri on October 25 last year.

Deputy public prosecutors Lailawati Ali and Steven Chin appeared for the prosecution while Ahmad Nizam Hamid appeared for Rafizi and Latheefa Koya appeared for Johari.

In 2011, Rafizi exposed the national cattle-farm breeder’s purchases of luxury condominium units.

NFC was owned by Mohamad Salleh Ismail, husband of Umno Wanita head Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

The auditor-general’s report in 2010 had also highlighted NFC’s failure to achieve its target of breeding 8,000 head of cattle in Gemas, Negri Sembilan, besides noting its management failures.

In November 2016, Rafizi lost a defamation suit and was ordered to pay Salleh and NFC RM200,000 in damages for claiming that a bank loan taken by the feedlot was used to purchase a condominium.

Nizam applied for a stay application, which the judge granted. Bail was set at RM15,000.

He will also file the application today.

Lailawati earlier sought a fine of RM500,000 and a six-month jail sentence for the accused.

“It gives the public the wrong message that it (leaking confidential banking details) wasn’t a serious offence.”

Rafizi and Johari were charged under Section 97 which carries a three-year jail sentence or a fine of RM3 million or both.

Nizam earlier pleaded for a more lenient punishment for Rafizi while Latheefa said Johari should not be jailed since he did not profit from the leak.

“And if the court decides to impose a fine, the amount should not be excessive and there should be a reasonable time for the fine to be paid,” Latheefa said.

Rafizi later said he was relieved that he was sentenced to 30 months’ jail without a fine.

“If I were fined a big amount, I would not know when I could pay it and it would have a great impact on Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) campaign (at the 14th general election),” he said. –  February 7, 2018.

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Comments

  • And I wonder what message the judiciary is sending to the people in this decision? That it is perfect alright for those in position to swindle the nation's coffers? Understand the judgement is strictly on the issue of leak of confidential information, but without effective protection of whistle-blowers the nation is open to plunder. We can only hope that the sentence will be minimise on appeal.

    Posted 6 years ago by Shovel Nose · Reply

  • In general, from perspective of rakyat as whistle blower of any high profile or theft of nation's coffer is at greater risk. Instead of tje guilty paety get the punishment it is the whilstle blower who were dump into prison. Yes, without any reasonable doubt under the Section 97 whistle blower found guilty but what happen to the guilty party????. Guess under the federal constitution no single individual is above the law so if the finding is legitimate those individual who misused nation's coffer should be also dealth with accordingly.














    Posted 6 years ago by Abdul Rahman Abdul Razak · Reply

  • The judge is right to find them guilty of the banking Act. The judge knew also that they did not reveal information for personal advantage but rather to prove that there were misuse of huge sum of government funds amounting to hundreds of million ringgit. The judge has full authority to decide the penalty to the offence. A RM 300 fine, as equivalent to a traffic offence should serve the purpose. But maybe the judge's hands are tied!

    Posted 6 years ago by Meng Kow Loh · Reply